Published 01 April 2007 in Publications
One Time Inflight magazine
We are sitting on the patio of the restaurant that abuts the gallery. In front is verdant lawn; behind it a golf course. Loosely tacked to the wall are two large oils by Father Frans Claerhout, an elderly Roman Catholic priest from the Free State who many feel is rapidly approaching iconoclastic status. Next to us a bevy of obviously well-off women giggle over their muffins. It's mid-morning tea time in Ruimsig, a sort of Afrikaner-elite Dainfern and Alice Pitzer is talking about her eight art galleries.
"You obviously cater to the more affluent Afrikaans-speaking clients?"
"I think we have more English-speaking customers than Afrikaans, Afrikaans people are generally conservative."
Alice, a petite, articulate thirty something sits back and considers what she's just said. "But if we take Portchie - well, he has a universal appeal. I wish more artists were like him."
How, only eight years after she sold her one-hour photo lab in Roodepoort, has she managed to build what is arguably one of the most thriving art businesses in South Africa? And in a climate which has seen many well-known galleries falter?
She doesn't hesitate. "Quality in artwork, service and follow-up," she says with the hint of a smile. "You must give people what they want and not try to sell them what you yourself just like. The main thing is that they must like the painting. It must talk to them. Then they will like it for life.
"That is why they come back to us.
We never try to pressurise someone into buying something they don't want. 1 encourage a customer to wait (if they can't afford what they want), but then buy the piece they like."
This is convincing logic but 1 sense there is more. The art in Alice Art, if this is aesthetically possible, is part of a style, a look, a family. Not one piece jars with another. Alice has somehow created her own artistic genre.
"Yes, it's a different type of art," she concurs. "I feel that so many people are buying art when they don't really understand what it is. There is a certain taste in this gallery. Everything I buy and show I love. People who come here have a similar taste. If they like the one thing they are going to like the next."
How does she choose her stock?
"The piece must communicate with me. There are some things I just cannot stock. If I don't like a piece it's because it doesn't talk to me. That's not to say it's ugly or wrong, but it simply does not communicate with me."
Would a William Kentridge sell in Ruimsig?
"Difficult," says Alice contemplatively.
"We nourish our clients. Twice a week we have art classes in this restaurant. You must start with the young market as people who begin buying now will grow into their art. A student who buys a print - when he is a doctor he will buy an Adriaan Boschoff.
"I realised that you must start somewhere with the young people. That's how we built up our market. We really need that young market, we need to educate them and grow them and then they will buy better pieces as they mature."
Are young people coming to Alice Art?
"There are a lot of young people buying art. I think our future is in the young."
Alice and her art are "different" in other ways as well, perhaps tellingly different and a further reason for her buoyant business. She can sell you a painting from R500 to a piece that is priced well in excess of R500 000. We clamber down a steep flight of stairs to her wine cellar which is home to some almost priceless collectables: no, not Meerlust or its ilk but the only existing collection extant of every bronze sculpture Father Claerhout has made. Even he, an octogenarian who donates the processes of his art to the Catholic Church and the remote mission station where he has lived for many years, does not have a full collection.
Alice is excitedly proud. "So many people don't even know that Father has done so many bronzes. He may only do one or two a year but I know l will get one. I have already turned down an overseas offer for this collection that will make your mind reel." One gets the impression that, whatever the offer, Alice would be reluctant to sell. These are her masterpieces.
The big Claerhout oils tacked to the patio walls are simply good art. Her miscellania, often on jumbled display in the gallery, are her bread and butter. But the collection of bronzes are a spiritual mentor in absentia. They point at the very heart of her love of art.
She says that most good artists are"spiritual people"; people whose beliefs are expressed on canvas, board, or in bronze and other media. Customers seem to pick this up when a painting "communicates" with them. Perhaps this is why so many people come back to this house/gallery in relatively remote Ruimsig.
1 enjoy a muffin and coffee on that remarkable patio. In the distance a man hits a long shot, obviously what he wanted as he dances a quick jig, his club held high like a trophy. Alice chats to her young daughters. More people troop into the gallery. 1 look up and smile. Welcome to Alice in Artland.
